


Falling Short

by tosca1390



Category: West Wing
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-18
Updated: 2010-09-18
Packaged: 2017-10-14 15:57:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/150978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tosca1390/pseuds/tosca1390
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>They weren’t alone together so often anymore, not like it used to be.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Falling Short

**Author's Note:**

> Post-ep for _The Wedding_.

*

Donna found him outside on the South Lawn, slouched on a bench, pale and weary in the early autumn dusk.

“You’re missing what may be the best wedding band in the history of weddings, Josh,” she called from a distance, tripping her way along the short-shorn grass.

“Yeah?” he called back glumly.

“Yeah. Schrödinger’s Cats.”

He snorted. “You’re joking.”

“Even I couldn’t make that up,” she said, sliding onto the bench next to him. “Friends of the groom from college. Fellow bug men.”

Josh shook his head, staring at his knees, his idle hands. “Bug men?”

“Entomologists. They study insects.”

“Ellie Bartlet is marrying a bug man?”

She rolled her eyes, smoothing her blunt bangs away from her face. “Probably not for the bugs themselves.”

Still and quiet just for a moment, he exhaled sharply and straightened up. “Yeah. Didn’t know he liked bugs, though.”

“For such a detail-oriented man such as yourself, that comes as such a surprise,” she said dryly.

Silence settled around them, odd and disorienting. They weren’t alone together so often anymore, not like it used to be.

Then again, hadn’t that been her whole point in leaving? To make everything different? In that, she had succeeded, and was proud of her accomplishments, but for the loss of Josh as her friend, as whatever they were and might have been—that was hard to bear.

He looked at her then, and the weariness in his face nestled deep inside of her, a familiar echo of their old ways. “What are you doing out here?”

She shrugged. “I couldn’t find you.”

He sat back, arms stretched behind his head. A faint grin curled his mouth. “No one else around to torture with your useless factoids?”

Her fingers curled into themselves in her lap; she looked into the purplish darkness, taking a cold, smoky breath. “I wanted to make sure everything was all right.”

She felt him tense next to her, the anxiety radiating off of him. In her mind, she’d been imagining horrors, demotions, Josh lost and subordinate to some Democratic hotshot who hadn’t given Santos or Josh the time of day two months ago. And yeah, maybe she’d liked it back then, when she was working for Russell, but deep inside, she knew Josh had been right during those cold harsh primaries; she had been working for the wrong campaign.

No matter what, Josh had been the one to find the Right Guy, and he deserved to take him all the way.

“Leo wouldn’t let them sack me,” Josh said finally, voice sharp and cutting in the air.

The knot she’d carried with her through the whole ceremony relaxed and loosened; she turned her face towards his. “Santos wouldn’t have sacked you, Leo or no Leo. And if he had, he’s not the guy we think he is,” she said firmly.

He shrugged, gaze fixed past her onto the lawn. “They haven’t been wrong. I’ve fucked up.”

“Hindsight’s twenty-twenty,” she retorted. “I’d like to see any of them do better.”

A breeze curled between them; she shivered, wishing she’d brought her coat, or something. The dress was beautiful, sure, but it was autumn now and it was not warm at night and she was outside in the deepening dusk of D.C. with nothing but her own skin and some silk to keep her comfortable.

“How do I go back to the Congressman, and make plans, and strategize like nothing happened? Like I wasn’t a breath and a bad egg roll away from not having it anymore?” he asked after a long moment, voice hitched low in his throat, reminiscent of late nights in the office and drinks at the Hawk and Dove and _Germany_ —

She swallowed down the sudden lump in her throat. “You just do it,” she said finally. “It’s the only way you can finish this, Josh. It’s the only way you can make sure he’s ready to do the job.”

“You don’t think he’s ready?” he asked, all dark seriousness.

“He will be, with you right there with him,” she said earnestly. “I know that much.”

At that, he smiled somewhat grimly. “It’d be nice to have a candidate just be _ready_ one day. I seem to always get the ones that need coaxing.”

She fixed him with a hard look. “You like when it’s hard, don’t try and kid yourself.”

He glanced her over, something like his boyish leer lightening his face. “Oh do I?”

“Yeah, because you’re a complete freak and you don’t want anything easily,” she retorted, a slow flush crawling over her neck.

The leer faded, but the softness remained. “I don’t know about anything,” he said before looking away again.

Now she wanted to touch him, because she thought she might know what he was saying, what he was thinking—

 _If you don’t think I don’t miss you every day_ —

“You’re the guy, Josh,” she said after a moment, hair falling over her shoulders and across her cheek. “I can’t believe I have to even give you this pep talk, after all, with your tremendous ego—“

He chuckled and she smiled. “Seriously, you’re the guy. You’re going to get it done. And then you can fire all the people who said you couldn’t do it.”

Looking at her then, his gaze caught hers, and all she could do was smile at him, soft and steady. It was still his time, and her time; maybe, maybe almost, it could be _their_ time. But not quite yet.

“Where’s your coat?” he asked after a moment.

She glanced down. “Inside—“

In a moment, he’d shrugged out of his suit jacket and reached around to slip it over her bare shoulders. His fingers skimmed her skin, raising goosebumps, but she merely smiled and tucked her arms into the sleeves. As her hands popped out from the cuffs, his hands covered hers.

“Thanks,” he said quietly.

She pressed her fingers against his, the most purposeful physical contact they’d had in—she wasn’t sure, actually. His hands were warm around hers. “You got it.”

He laughed outright at that, getting to his feet and pulling her up with him. “Let’s go in. I’d like to hear Schrödinger’s Cats once before I die, and this could be all I get.”

“Unless we’re invited to any anniversary parties, and they make a special appearance,” she teased as they began to walk back towards the White House, all alight and sparkling against the dusky sky. Their hands fell apart slowly, cold air curling in the space between them; she breathed in and smelled autumn and elections and _him_ , all around her.

*


End file.
